Tag: One Year War

The Subject
The RX-77-2 Guncannon is the 2nd mobile suit (following the RX-75 Guntank) designed under the Earth Federation’s ‘Project V’ during the One Year War. The Guncannon is the first Federation suit that took on a humanoid look. Like its ‘Project V’ mates, it also uses the Core Block System with the FF-X7 Core Fighter.

With its twin 240mm shoulder mounted cannons, the Guncannon serves as a mid-range support mobile suit for the RX-78-2. Like the RX-78-2, it is also capable of firing a beam rifle. It however, lacks a melee weapon with only 2 head mounted machine guns for close support purposes. The RX-77-2 would also be the only mobile suit from the project to see limited mass production throughout the War.

The Build
This version of the Guncannon is part of Bandai’s new HGUC Revive subline, where they upgrade the original HG version of previously released kits. The original HGUC Guncannon kicked off the HGUC line way back in 1999. The Revive Guncannon has been improved in all aspects compared to the original: parts breakdown that minimizes seamlines, improved poseability and much better proportions. The only things missing in this new boxing are the pair of spray missiles that replace the shoulder cannons.

Once snapfitted, it’s a no brainer to basically consign the original HGUC to the â€˜never to be built’ pile. The only thing going for the HGUC is the price and the spray missiles. Otherwise, the Revive version blows the original out of the water. With 15 years of improved engineering, this kit is basically seamline-free with the most prominent being the one that runs the side of the head and (as always) the beam rifle. The poseability is also much improved with the Revive being able to be posed in very dynamic poses. However, as per modern Bandai kits, the kit requires a lot of sanding to get rid of sprue marks. One minor mistake I made was installing the visor. Once on, it wouldn’t come off. So I ended up masking it off before painting.

This kit looks excellent out of the box and so I finished it with no mods nor additional detailing. I used the following colors for the kit:

Lifecolor UA033 Dark Gull Grey

Model Master Acryl 4714 Insignia Red

Model Master Acryl 4744 Insignia Blue

Vallejo Model Air 71050 Light Grey

Vallejo Model Air 71065 Steel

Vallejo Model Color 70915 Deep Yellow

Vallejo Model Color 70919 Foundation White

I decided to go with the original color scheme with some changes. First, I added digital camo to break up the monotony of the solid red main color. I also decided make it more asymmetrical by only adding the camo on the right side. This was done first by spraying a darker shade of red (Insignia Red with one drop of Insignia Blue). Then I spent an evening randomly adding 1mm masking tape in a perpendicular pattern. I then sprayed the primer over the darker red before spraying Insignia Red as the main color. Unfortunately, it wasn’t perfect but I decided it was good enough to live with it and move on.

The other change was replacing the white color for the head with Vallejo Model Air Light Grey. The round mold on the pelvis and the chest vents were also changed from yellow to this color. They ended up being only very slightly lighter in color than the Dark Gull Grey I used for all the joints, hands, feet, backpack and cannons.

Some of the smaller parts or those that are a challenge to mask were simply handpainted. After that I coated the parts with Future and left to dry a few days to prepare for decals. I believe that ’09’ would depict this as Hayato Kobayashi’s machine from the One Year War. For me, when it comes to gunpla, less is usually more so nothing overboard with the decals. The markings were from some spare Bandai Decals and an ALPS printed sheet I got from Hobby Kulture in Singapore. I remember Bandai Decals to be quite good but the ones I have are quite old which is probably why they were very fragile. After a day of curing and a wipedown with a wet cloth, I handbrushed Future over the decals to seal them in.

Panel lining was next with Vallejo Model Wash Dark Grey. When it comes to panel lining for mecha, I’m still quite sloppy so they aren’t uniform and as solid as I would like. I chalk it up to learning experience and cleaned up as much as I can with a Windex soaked cotton bud.

The kit was then finished with a flat coat of Vallejo Polyurethane Satin Varnish. I only made a quick pass over the parts which left them semi-gloss. I liked how they looked so I left as is.

And that’s it! Normally it’s pretty much standard practise that gunpla is painted with enamel or lacquer paints as they dry stronger (they won’t chip off with posing of the kit) and tend to give the impression of a deeper and richer color. I completed this kit with nothing but acrylics though, even down to the primer and flat coats. Looks alright to me. 🙂

The Subject
The RGM-79 GM is The Earth Federation’s first mass production Mobile Suit. The GM was developed using the test data collected from the prototype RX-78 Gundam and various other experimental Mobile Suits. The GM is basically a very simplified version of the Gundam. To cut costs, the core block system and one beam saber was removed. Standard Titanium Alloy was used as armor for the GM instead of the stronger Luna Titanium used by the Gundam. The beam rifle was also replaced with a short ranged beam spray gun or a standard ammunition firing machine gun.

The mass production capacity of the Federation basically churned out hundreds of GMs in a few short months and these were quickly introduced to the fronts, thus ensuring the Federation’s victory in the One Year War.

The Kit
This is my first kit done only with spraypaint. Some mods done to improve the proportions, including lengthening the arms and the legs. The end result is a very tall (about half a head taller than the standard kit) and lithe-looking kit. List of mods include: Visor on head and slight reshaping of whole head

Covered up the obvious peg holes for the shield on the backpack and arms with minus molds

Extended arms, thighs and legs

Changed the angle of the waist peg for better posing

Modded the leg joints so it can pose better

Extended the feet

Very mild weathering was done. And not done very well I must say. The panel lining’s very roughly done. Need to find a better way of doing it actually. No drybrushing at all. I wanted to get it out of the way before it started to bog me down hehe.

It’s been a while heh. I always get bogged down in the sanding process but anyhow, finding some spare ball joints in my GM Quel resin kit spurred me to fix the one glaring problem with this project: the broken neck.

The original fix (August 30 entry) I did worked somewhat. The head would fit OK but it can’t tilt nor turn. With the ball joint, it would get back its mobility. For the head, I used a chisel to carefully and slowly scrape of plastic to make space for the female part of the ball joint. Then a healthy amount of super glue is used to fix it in place. Then I drilled a hole in the torso to fit the male part of the ball joint. It’s also fixed into place by super glue.

It has been raining almost everyday so the environment wasn’t condusive for painting. But it’s almost done! Except of course, more things to fix. Sigh. The pic on the right are some of them that require a final fixing before I can proceed. Bring on the sandpaper!

I try to build my kits with ease of painting in mind. So the more the parts that can be taken apart and painted separately the better. But alas, this being a HG kit, this is not possible so I have to settle with at least some masking, which is what I did below with the leg actuator parts.

This being the holiday period, I hope I have enough time to fix all of the problems and at least be ready for decaling by the new year. Heh. Wish…

I am finally onto the decal stages for this one. Although there are still some parts to fix, I decided to decal the ones that are all set.

I don’t really like to add too many decals to my kits. For one thing, it’s distracting to the overall lines of the kit, and for another, I’m a lazy bum who doesn’t like to deal with too many of them.

Because access to Gunze gloss coat is hard here, I decided to popby Ace Hardware to see whether there was an alternative. I found Krylon Preserve it! which was used for paper and photographs. Checking out the label, it says it would work for plastics so what the heck, I decided to try it.

And it actually works better than Gunze gloss! It’s cheaper too by the can! It dries into a very smooth and slippery glossy sheen which I couldn’t achieve with the Gunze-branded one. Nice.

I cut up the leg joints up so the lower leg can twist independently from the thighs. I find it gives the GM a better look. The cutting is quite rough so I’ll probably need to do some fixing to make the break in the joint less obvious.

To allow the legs to be pushed further back for a wider leg pose, I added 1mm to the butt plate (for lack of a better word). I then cut a length of paper clip to replace the male part I cut away. I then extended the forearms by 1mm each. 1.5mm makes them look too long. I prefer my mecha looking with longer legs, helps to make them look slimmer.

I tried extending the neck 1mm and dammit, I lost the PC nub for the head. Since I didn’t have my spares with me at the moment, I fashioned a new nub with epoxy putty. Then it’s a matter of sanding down till the head fits. 😛 The head itself I added a hood above the visor. This idea is blatantly stolen from Erix93 heh. I also carved out some of the bottom of the head to give it a nicer shape. The original looks like a helmet to be honest. Lastly, the visor was dipped in Future Floor Polish for a supershine. Can’t really see the effect from the photo though, but rest assured, it’s shiny.

More work done to fix the proportions. The epoxy putty ball to replace the lost PC was carved so the head can fit on it. The visor in the head is now masked to facilitate primer and paint. One last mod is thickeing the top of the shoulders by 1mm. So the shoulders won’t look ‘droopy’.

And I’m now more or less done. Below are before and after pics of the kit. The open palm is from the Cold District GM. The design is different from the GM’s so I’m sure whether I’ll use it the end. For now it’ll have to do.

All that’s left is adding some panel lines to detail up the kit a bit. Then it’s the tedious task of sanding and priming, sanding and priming…